FINALLY Someone's Prosecuted (and not in absentia) for U.S. Torture -- And It's Poland That Comes Through

Unlike President Barack Obama, who has refused to prosecute American intelligence agents involved in the kidnapping and torture of terrorism suspects, leaders in Poland have charged their former top spymaster for helping the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) imprison detainees in their country.

Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, the former head of Poland’s intelligence service, faces charges of violating international law by “unlawfully depriving prisoners of their liberty” while allowing the CIA to hold and interrogate detainees at a secret base near Szymany Airport, north of Warsaw. Siemiatkowski was the intelligence chief from 2002 to 2004, the period when the CIA prison in Poland was in operation.

The New York Times reported that all three of the CIA prisoners who are known to have been waterboarded spent time in Poland, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the architect of the September 11, 2001, attacks; Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is charged in the 2000 bombing of the American destroyer Cole; and Abu Zubaydah, who ran a terrorist camp and facilitated militants’ travel.

The Polish media reported that former Prime Minister Leszek Miller, who served in office last decade while the extraordinary renditions took place, may, at the least, be called to testify. Poland’s president at the time, Aleksander Kwasniewski, has said that he didn’t know about the CIA prison until U.S. President George W. Bush thanked him during a visit to Poland in June 2003. Bush’s thanks were “so profuse” that Kwasniewski knew “something was not right” considering that Polish support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq had been relatively limited.

“We try to treat our Constitution seriously and try not to forget the fact that there was a manifest violation of the Polish Constitution within the country’s borders,” Adam Bodnar, vice president of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, based in Warsaw, told The New York Times. He added, “I remember the lessons of constitutionality given by the Americans in the early ’90s, always saying to us, you have to create a new constitution and every action by state authorities must have limits. Poland has just learned this lesson well.”

"What are we gonna do now?Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?’Cos he's working for the clampdownThey put up a poster saying we earn more than you!When we're working for the clampdownWe will teach our twisted speechTo the young believersWe will train our blue-eyed menTo be young believersThe men at the factory are old and cunningYou don't owe nothing, so boy get runnin'It's the best years of your life they want to stealSo you got someone to boss aroundIt makes you feel big nowYou drift until you brutalizeYou made your first kill nowIn these days of evil presidentesWorking for the clampdownBut lately one or two has fully paid their dueFor working for the clampdownHa! Gitalong! Gitalong!"

"An incredible - and grossly under-reported - story out of Chicago, where Howard Morgan, a black 60-year-old former police officer working railroad security, was stopped for an alleged traffic violation, shot 28 times (21 in the back) by four white former colleagues, and inexplicably survived, only to be charged - and tried twice by a prosecutor who argued, "Every bullet he got, he earned" - with trying to kill them. His sentencing is Thursday; he faces up to 80 years in prison. Occupy Chicago is involved. And there's a Change.orgpetition....

CHICAGO HAS A LONG HISTORY OF BOTH POLICE FASCISM AND RACISM.....NOW ALSO SERVING A FASCIST MAYOR, RHAM

Support This Site

Buy Books

Get Gear

The log-in box below is only for bloggers. Nobody else will be able to log in because we have not figured out how to stop voluminous spam ruining the site. If you would like us to have the resources to figure that out please donate. If you would like to receive occasional emails please sign up. If you would like to be a blogger here please send your resume.

User login

Username: *

Password: *

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.